


Lyrical

by brutti_ma_buoni



Category: Venetia - Georgette Heyer
Genre: F/M, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 02:34:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8872387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutti_ma_buoni/pseuds/brutti_ma_buoni
Summary: The Damerels are on honeymoon (again) in Greece in 1821, when revolution breaks out. Venetia remains unperturbed.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bow/gifts).



To some people is given the gift of calm. Venetia, Lady Damerel, had perforce learned calm from an early age, and since her scandalous and beloved marriage had reinforced that learning with endless repetition in the face of society gossips. Fortunately, therefore, she was well prepared to find herself in the midst of revolution in a foreign land. 

“My dear one,” she said, “I’m sorry about Delphi, but we must miss it, I think.”

Damerel gave a graceless shrug, lip curled with what an observer might conclude was a scornful aristocratic disregard for the romantic cause of the oppressed Hellenes, but his wife knew well was simple disappointment, poorly concealed. “One can hardly suggest otherwise,” he said, voice raised a trifle over an outburst of gunshots outside. “Athens gave us as much as you asked. But I should rather have liked you to see- Oh, no matter. Is Yanis back with news, then?”

“Yes, yes, all is arranged,” Venetia replied, gracefully skimming the day’s hard toil she had undertaken while Damerel wrote countless letters to contacts, any contacts he could think of who might be able to ensure safe passage for a pair of English nobles caught unawares by the upsurge from nationalist talk to very real rebellion against the Ottoman yoke. In sum, their belongings were packed, valuables concealed, and a number of names and directions of friendly boat-owning locals were securely in Venetia’s memory. “We sail for Brindisi tomorrow, I hope. Or, at least, if not for Brindisi then away from here. I wish I had an atlas, some of Yanis’s proposals seemed to me to be somewhat against our ideal direction, but we shall apparently be better off there. Would you like some wine?”

Damerel’s scowl had lifted as his wife spoke, and by now his expression was positively amiable. “You are a wonder, my love. I fear it is a very poor honeymoon-“

“Stuff,” she interrupted. “This is our third, and all have been delightful, as you well know, Jasper. We can hardly blame the poor Greeks for timing their protests so inconveniently for our pleasure, can we?”

It was a masterly tactic. When Venetia said ‘pleasure’ in a particular tone, she had found her husband amenable to almost any suggestion for what followed – so long as there was a period of pleasure in his immediate future. “Although,” she added, for good measure, “You know how _inconvenient_ it is aboard ship, so perhaps we should-“

Damerel, perfectly aware of his frailty in this area, and content with wifely scheming which so precisely met his preferences, outright laughed at her, and swept her up for a kiss. “Servants?” he checked, having been brought to this courtesy by long and patient tuition from a wife who preferred that the housemaids not see the mistress upended on a divan while there was dusting to be done. 

“In the kitchens,” she replied, contentedly. “But perhaps, our bedroom nonetheless?” 

It was a small and cramped room, but with a view down to the little port which was their current unsafe refuge. What light scuffling between the small garrison and locals was ongoing was out of sight at the hilltop fort, if not quite out of hearing. It was unlikely to become dangerous, they had judged, given the lack of ammunition at the fort and the number of town lads employed by the Ottomans in this trivial outpost of their power. Damerel had undoubtedly slept in worse. Venetia too, in the last few years of scrambling around all the most interesting parts of Europe, in company with Aubrey and occasional acquaintances from Damerel’s past – some of whom had the most scandalously loose definition of appropriate lodgings. 

It was, at the least, private and lockable. And did not heave with the rocking of waves, something for which Venetia was most deeply grateful. One of her most lasting memories of their first honeymoon was an amorous Damerel in Biscay, rudely decanted from their tossing bunk, sitting on the cabin floor in hilarious and grumpy disarray, just before their last lamp failed. Her laughter had been infectious, eventually, but his lordship’s dignity had taken some days to recover. This would be their last opportunity for love for some days, that lesson well learned. 

On their travels, Venetia preferred a simple mode, no more maid service required than her accommodating husband’s help with occasional fastenings. Her dress slipped neatly down, to be caught and laid practically on the bedroom’s only chair, and she turned to address her husband’s cuffs and neckcloth, prodigally taking the offered opportunity for kissing the while. He shrugged out of boots, shirt and breeches, and turned to her, and their temporary bed. 

“We won’t be seeing Lesbos, either, I fear,” he said, somewhat to Venetia’s bafflement, before adding, “A shame. I wanted to read you Sappho there.”

Oh… “Scandalous,” she said, approvingly, lying back in welcome. Occasionally, she worried that she had tamed Damerel too far, but he could always convince her otherwise, as tonight. 

“Nothing of the kind. A great poet of love, and a great wordsmith too. You will like her. Her reputation is mere gossip, I fear. Although-“ he paused and dipped his head to kiss Venetia breathlessly, “-it would have been piquant, would it not? A lover of women, such as you will allow I am, has much sympathy with Sappho as the scandalmongers portrayed her.” 

He was propped on one elbow, looking down at her with heat. Damerel loved to play these games, and over the years she had learned to enjoy the release of not being, for a few hours, Venetia née Lanyon, now Damerel, outcast of the polite world, living on the fringes of respectability. No matter how loving and beloved, there were grey days when Venetia considered her marriage a practical disadvantage. But then, as now, Jasper made her laugh, and more, and the dark mood would pass. Playing another life was sometimes a release. 

Damerel dropped his head to her breast, with a familiar sound promising mutual pleasure. She lost the mood of reflection, then, in the heat of marital love. It was some considerable time before the sound of gunfire penetrated their intent silence once more, and by then Venetia felt she could hardly have run from an army far more threatening and invasive than this token skirmishing. Sensing her slight distraction, Damerel raised his face from her abdomen, licking his lips in provocation. He murmured something low, in a promising tone which Venetia welcomed with every fibre not currently weak with satisfaction. 

“What, love?” she asked. It could have been Greek, but perhaps she was simply not parsing French or English as readily as usual. Her husband’s fault, she decided. 

But no. It had been Greek. Damerel smiled up at her. “Sappho, love:

 _Lady, in all my battles  
Fight as my comrade._”

He meant to be scandalous in implication, and succeeded. But Venetia felt the rightness in the words. “Of course, love,” she answered. 

Damerel’s smile turned less wolfish, more adoring. He slid up to take their accustomed sleeping position, wrapped together in a unit indivisible. 

The gunfire peppered the night from time to time, but my lord and lady rested well that night.

**Author's Note:**

> The lines from Sappho's Ode to Aphrodite are quoted from: http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/vandiver.shtml, translation by Elizabeth Vandiver.


End file.
